The Cloverfield Paradox Takes a Massive Swing, and Misses

Paramount surprised Cloverfield fans earlier this year when word started leaking that the third installment in the financially reliable, notoriously secretive franchise might be going straight to Netflix—a phrase that could soon become synonymous with the antiquated put-down “straight to video.” The movie, formerly known as God Particle, boasted an impressive cast, as well as the promise of the franchise’s pedigree—which made fans wonder why the space-set sci-fi film had been repeatedly delayed before bypassing theaters altogether.

Netflix mustered up a healthy social-media buzz on Sunday when it not only released the first trailer for the film, in a costly on-air TV spot, but also dropped the movie itself online immediately following the game. Starting with its its eponymous found-footage monster movie in 2008, and continuing with the locked-room thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016, the franchise has always loved a twist. Its latest—the clandestine release of the film straight to viewers’ streaming device of choice right after the biggest media spectacle of the year—not only got #CloverfieldParadox trending on Twitter during the Super Bowl (no mean feat), but also allowed the movie to completely bypass the traditional promotion-and-review system. The film had no need to cut multiple trailers or release advance screenings for critics, gradually building up anticipation—Netflix just dangled the shiny lure of the Cloverfield brand to see who might bite. As it turns out, that was the best option the streaming platform had—because, for a few short hours, the disappointing Cloverfield Paradox was able to dodge negative word of mouth entirely.

The truth is, despite the prestige and a talented cast including David Oyelowo,Gugu Mbatha-Raw,Elizabeth Debicki,Daniel Bruhl,Chris O’Dowd, and Zhang Ziyi,The Cloverfield Paradox gives off the tired vibe of a TV episode you’ve already seen. The Netflix platform, combined with the presence of “San Junipero” star Mbatha-Raw, is enough to make viewers wonder if this is actually a particularly long episode of Black Mirror. (It’s especially challenging to distinguish a Black Mirror episode from a Cloverfield installment, when any given episode of the former can and may clock in at a feature-length run time.)

This time, the franchise heads to space, with Mbatha-Raw, Oyelowo, Bruhl, et al. comprising a multi-national team of scientists. They have been tasked with testing something called the Shepard Accelerator (a souped-up hadron collider) at a safe distance from Earth to see if they might find a new source of power capable of solving the planet’s acute energy crisis. But early on in The Cloverfield Paradox, we get a hint that this film will explain the presence of the mysterious monsters in the first two Cloverfield installments, when a paranoid-sounding, earthbound theorist, played by Donal Logue, wonders if the Shepard Accelerator might accidentally rip open a membrane of space and time.

He predicts that “monsters, demons, and beasts from the sea” might emerge—“not just here, but in the past, future, and other dimensions.” The embattled scientists—who are already at each others’ throats from being stuck in space together for two years before the main action of the film begins—give the Shepard Accelerator one more try, and things go exactly as poorly as Logue’s character predicted.

To explain how, exactly, things go badly would spoil the premise of the film (another challenge in promoting it that the studio gets to bypass by releasing it on Netflix). But if you’ve seen a Cloverfield film before, it will come as no shock to learn that members of the telegenic, variously accented crew members soon start dropping like flies, in ways recognizable to anyone who has a passing familiarity with Event Horizon, the Alien movies, Doctor Who, or the previous works of J.J. Abrams—who also served as producer on this film. The Cloverfield Paradox reaches for so many outlandish twists, turns, and sci-fi tropes that it forgets to build the one thing that genre stories of its kind need: believable and sympathetic human characters.

This is no fault of the cast, all of whom gamely try to keep up with the movie’s many hairpin turns. The most successful is Mbatha-Raw, whose open, emotionally vulnerable face pairs well with her character’s tragic Manchester by the Sea-esque backstory. Bruhl and Debicki also gamely try to cram in as much pathos as they can between the lines of techno-jargon they’re expected to deliver. Less successful is the usually appealing O’Dowd, who is burdened with a succession of deadweight one-liners. Back on Earth, Roger Davies plays Mbatha-Raw’s husband, Michael, in a role that is developed just a hair above the classic, two-dimensional disaster movie role of Wife on Phone.

But it’s Michael’s earthbound plotline that makes this Cloverfield installment impossible to write off as merely an anomalous blip in an otherwise creatively rich franchise. In a twist any viewer could see coming from space, Michael is instrumental in revealing how The Cloverfield Paradox justifies the monsters that have rampaged through both the original Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane. It‘s actually hard to see where the franchise goes from here, though—and if Paradox was always meant to put a button on the whole thing, Cloverfield is, sadly, going out with a whimper.

Cloverfield has also, traditionally, served as an alluring audition piece for young directors like Matt Reeves and Dan Trachtenberg, both of whom were and arepoised to move on to even bigger things. The Cloverfield Paradox director Julius Onah, who has mostly helmed shorts, will be hard-pressed to similarly launch a feature career on the back of this project. Perhaps he’ll have better luck with his next film, Luce, starring Octavia Spencer and Naomi Watts.

Still: hats off, truly, to Netflix, for nimbly trying to dodge the same negative buzz that hung around its last big genre effort, Bright. Unfortunately for the streaming service, those who forewent NBC’s weepy episode of This Is Us to catch the next Cloverfield film right after the Super Bowl were decidedly unimpressed. The Twitter reactions were fairly unanimous: this was a big swing and a miss from a once-promising franchise.

Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s 1927 German expressionist classic has influenced countless films, not least because it’s a timeless paean to the Art Deco movement. Set in 2026, Metropolis imagines a world of bright lights, towering buildings—like Manhattan on steroids—and impossibly chic robots.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 1968 film about humans traversing the universe lived up to the gargantuan promise of the word “odyssey,” starting with the daring opening scene set to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Everything was immaculately designed, from the pristine spaceship with its glowing red emergency hatch, to the impressively rendered space walks.

Photo: From MGM/Stanley Kubrick Productions/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic, which is just about to turn 40, gave us some of the most enduring alien-adventure imagery of our time. From the Lite-Brite flying U.F.O. zipping across the starry sky, to the tableau of workers set against the stunning desert landscape, Encounters is one for the ages.

Photo: From Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

E.T.

E.T. himself wasn’t a looker, but the movie sure was. Steven Spielberg grounded the film with looming, exterior shots of Culver City, then flung Elliott’s adventures deep into the sun-dappled heart of the ethereal Redwood National Park.

Photo: From Universal/Everett Collection.

Under the Skin

Few movies are as darkly disarming as Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 thriller, filmed half in Scotland’s bustling city streets, half in its surreal natural landscapes. Scarlett Johansson’s man-eating alien also brings her prey back to a pitch-black cave with a deep pool, like something truly out of a nightmare.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland’s 2015 stunner takes place largely in one home—but what an unbelievably gorgeous home it is, a high-tech wonderland nestled deep into a verdant forest. The brilliant design extends to everything from the luxe-yet-minimalist decor, to the aesthetic of the main robot (played by Alicia Vikander), her translucent body only partially sheathed in skin.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

Arrival

Before tackling Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve polished his sci-fi chops with Arrival, the slow-burning vehicle about a linguist trying to communicate with aliens. Though the drama is mostly contained to military quarters and the room with the aliens, Villeneuve shows off a little by featuring a massive, oblong spaceship floating just above the ground of a foggy, grassy field. Bradford Young’s rich cinematography, inspired by the darkly beautiful photography of Martina Hoogland Ivanow, ups the film’s art factor.

Photo: From Paramount/Everett Collection.

Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s 1927 German expressionist classic has influenced countless films, not least because it’s a timeless paean to the Art Deco movement. Set in 2026, Metropolis imagines a world of bright lights, towering buildings—like Manhattan on steroids—and impossibly chic robots.

From Everett Collection.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 1968 film about humans traversing the universe lived up to the gargantuan promise of the word “odyssey,” starting with the daring opening scene set to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Everything was immaculately designed, from the pristine spaceship with its glowing red emergency hatch, to the impressively rendered space walks.

From MGM/Stanley Kubrick Productions/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic, which is just about to turn 40, gave us some of the most enduring alien-adventure imagery of our time. From the Lite-Brite flying U.F.O. zipping across the starry sky, to the tableau of workers set against the stunning desert landscape, Encounters is one for the ages.

From Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

E.T.

E.T. himself wasn’t a looker, but the movie sure was. Steven Spielberg grounded the film with looming, exterior shots of Culver City, then flung Elliott’s adventures deep into the sun-dappled heart of the ethereal Redwood National Park.

From Universal/Everett Collection.

Star Wars IV

Let us now pay homage to the film that started a billion-dollar franchise and begat a cottage industry of lesser copycats. From the rosy, double-mooned desert landscape of Tatooine, to the eternal image of the Millennium Falcon hurtling through a starry galaxy far, far away, the first S_tar Wars_ set the stage for an incredibly novel universe.

From Lucasfilm/Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s original adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s story of rogue replicants presented a deliciously claustrophobic city cluttered with neon lights, inspired by the urgency of Hong Kong. Much of the film’s gargantuan feel can be attributed to ingenious special effects and models painted to look like a life-sized dystopian hellscape.

From Ladd Company/Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

The Matrix

Perhaps the most enduring thing about The Matrix is not its mind-melting plot, but its perfectly curated futuristic-goth aesthetic. The Wachowskis brilliantly baked Neo’s world into dark green settings, a moody backdrop for the leather-clad cyberpunks waging a physical and philosophical war against their enemies.

From Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.

Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón scooped up the best-director Oscar for this 2013 film for good reason. The tense, space-bound thriller is largely comprised of special effects, opening with a gorgeously rendered vision of the Earth in all its breathtaking splendor.

From Warner Bros/Everett Collection.

Under the Skin

Few movies are as darkly disarming as Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 thriller, filmed half in Scotland’s bustling city streets, half in its surreal natural landscapes. Scarlett Johansson’s man-eating alien also brings her prey back to a pitch-black cave with a deep pool, like something truly out of a nightmare.

From Everett Collection.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland’s 2015 stunner takes place largely in one home—but what an unbelievably gorgeous home it is, a high-tech wonderland nestled deep into a verdant forest. The brilliant design extends to everything from the luxe-yet-minimalist decor, to the aesthetic of the main robot (played by Alicia Vikander), her translucent body only partially sheathed in skin.

From Everett Collection.

Arrival

Before tackling Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve polished his sci-fi chops with Arrival, the slow-burning vehicle about a linguist trying to communicate with aliens. Though the drama is mostly contained to military quarters and the room with the aliens, Villeneuve shows off a little by featuring a massive, oblong spaceship floating just above the ground of a foggy, grassy field. Bradford Young’s rich cinematography, inspired by the darkly beautiful photography of Martina Hoogland Ivanow, ups the film’s art factor.